Exhaust blowing all the time now. Leaking at the head. Copper gasket rings (type 4) not sealing properly.

Took exhaust and header off last night. All rings have a leak. Need to rework/file exhaust header flanges so they sit evenly and also remove some of the metal from the "ears" to allow the flange to seal up tight against the head.Will add some pics later

here's the copper gaskets that were on there: placed in same order as heads they came from. You can see that there is not alot of sealing going on! Each one shows signs of leakage, and number 3 is very bad.

Here's the new ones ready to go on. (Marks are from test fitting) note: they are not annealed yet.

Muffler and header off

Took a closer look at the flanges and ears on the header. found some issuescylinder 1ears are not correct depth to allow flange to contact with gasket

flange looks ok...

until gasket is on, then can see gaps

This was case with all of them.. some worse..

cylinder 2

cylinder 3

cylinder 4

Annealing the copper gaskets: heat them up to high temp then pop in water..

in the water they go:

Clear change in colour:

Ready to sort flange shape out and file down to make a flat even contact area with a bastard file

Re-shaped all to remove leaks around the gasket: trusty hammer and metal bar/flat approach with some heat appliedthen..Filed down, and checked with copper gasket to see if level

Next was to sort out the ears: needed to be 30mm minim from flange to ear so had to grind down the ears...

Checked distributor cap and rotor arm, no corrosion on contact areas. It's fitted with electronic ignition, so no points to worry about. (one less thing to worry about)Re-fitted plugs etc.Test ran for 20mins, no leaks on header or rocker covers.

The exhaust fitment looks like a nightmare to properly get right, when the fixings are not straight. Looks like you've spent some time on getting it to be just right. (Congrats on that) I hate it when things don't bolt together and fit properly when they should.

Once you fix one thing, you think it's ok for a while, how wrong we can be. Good luck on fixing the leak and curing the recent popping and banging, let's hope it's as simple as that.

The engine I'm stripping down is one of those "Well I didn't expect THAT", few good things but mostly bad. I've just found out it didn't like being stored under cover in the back garden since May 2014, bugger.